Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy

A beginner’s guide to Jewish genealogy would undoubtedly take many more pages and cost much more. Instead it is a getting started guide meant to convince the reader that tracing one’s Jewish ancestry can be done. The resources described are primarily Internet resources. The Internet has revolutionized family history research. What used to take days or weeks now takes minutes or hours because of the wealth of resources on the Internet. It describes in detail such resources as JewishGen, Morse One-Step site, FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage and many more sites. It alerts the readers to what types of documents of their ancestors will aid in their research—such records as birth, marriage, death, Immigration, census and naturalization records. Special focus is given to two problems often uttered by neophyte Jewish genealogists: (1) My name was changed at Ellis Island and (2) I do not know the town my family came from.